The international community delivered a stinging rebuke to Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying today the practice violates its responsibilities as an occupying power.
	A declaration adopted by consensus among 126 of the 196 parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention insists that international humanitarian law must be followed in areas affected by the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
	The Geneva Conventions govern the rules of war and military occupation. Nations that took part in a one-day conference in Geneva "emphasize that all serious violations of international humanitarian law must be investigated and that all those responsible should be brought to justice," according to the 10-point declaration.
	Swiss Ambassador Paul Fivat, who chaired the conference, told reporters afterward the declaration is legally binding on all nations that adopted it. Israel and the US didn't participate.
	"This is a signal and we can hope that words ...

Geneva Conventions invoke rights of Palestinians

PTI Automatic

Pope Francis got a cake, cards and a tango demonstration for his 78th birthday today and 800 kilograms of chicken meat for the poor.
	The Vatican said today the meat, provided by a Spanish producer, would be distributed to soup kitchens.
	Francis also greeted eight homeless people bearing sunflowers during his general audience today, held under brilliantly sunny skies in St Peter's Square.
	As he drove around in the open-air car to greet the crowds, children handed up birthday cards they had made for him.
	Francis asked one: "Did you make this? It's good!" Others held up signs saying "Feliz Cumpleanos" ("Happy Birthday" in Spanish) and sang to him.
	Outside the square, dozens of couples danced the tango, the Argentine pope's favorite. The pope quipped: "It looks like a two-by-four!" - a reference to tango.
	"The tango is a dance that unites all people no matter where they come from," said Patrizia D'Aquino, part of a group from the Abruzzo region of Italy.
	Despite the joyous ...

Pope gets cake, tango and chicken for birthday

He may be president now, but Barack Obama says he's a black man who has been mistaken for the valet.
	"There's no black male my age, who's a professional, who hasn't come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn't hand them their car keys," Obama told People magazine in an interview out today. That happened to him, he said.
	First lady Michelle Obama said her husband also once was mistaken for a waiter at a black-tie party and asked for coffee. She said even when she went to Target as first lady, a fellow shopper asked her to get something from a shelf.
	"I think people forget that we've lived in the White House for six years," she said. "Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs."
	The first couple spoke about their experiences with racism amid protests nationwide over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in State Island, New York. The president 

Obama: As a black man he's been mistaken for valet

Germany's highest court has struck down breaks on inheritance tax that benefit companies and ordered the government to come up with new rules.
	The Federal Constitutional Court said today that rules meant mainly to exempt family-run companies from most, even all, of the inheritance tax due when firms pass on to heirs can unfairly benefit big companies.
	It said the government is entitled to allow small and medium-sized companies tax breaks "to secure their existence and preserve jobs" but told it to come up with new rules by June 2016.
	In the meantime, the current rules will apply.
	The court said USD 5.4 billion in inheritance tax was paid in 2012 while exemptions to the tune of nearly USD 50 billion were granted.

German court strikes down tax breaks for companies

The German Cabinet has agreed to send up to 100 troops to the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to train Kurdish forces for their fight against the Islamic State group.
	Parliament is to debate the mission in January but since the government has a large parliamentary majority the mission is expected to be approved.
	Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters today that "we have to make sure the front line against (the Islamic State group) is held."
	Germany has already provided weapons and other military gear worth 70 million euros (USD 87.8 million) to aid Iraq's Kurdish peshmerga fighters.
	Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Germany had "good experiences with the peshmerga. They are reliable and motivated, but they need good equipment and good training.

Germany to send up to 100 troops to train Kurds

France has thwarted five terror attacks and dismantled 13 networks linked to extremists in Syria but the number of young people leaving to join the fight has doubled in the past year, the country's top security official said today.
	French fighters make up the largest contingent of Europeans being recruited to join Muslim extremists in Iraq and Syria, and security officials fear they will return newly skilled in warfare and carry out attacks at home.
	Calls by the Islamic State group for lone-wolf attacks in the West have heightened anxiety. A Frenchman who is believed to have fought with the organisation is charged in a deadly shooting at a Brussels Jewish museum.
	Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said today that France was committed to stopping the networks, but said about 1,200 citizens have left for Syria, including about 400 still in the war zone and 200 on their way.
	He gave no details on the five attacks he said had been stopped since August 2013, beyond saying they were ...

France: 5 terror attacks thwarted, networks broken

A hot air balloon fell in the popular tourist region of Cappadocia today, killing a Chinese tourist and injuring six other passengers from China and Malaysia, the region's governor said.
	Gov. Mehmet Ceylan said a sudden change of wind direction appeared to have caused the balloon which took off from Goreme to make a rough landing. The exact cause of the accident was under investigation, he added.
	The injured tourists were hospitalized but were not in life-threatening condition, he said.
	Dozens of hot air balloons carry tourists aloft most mornings in Goreme to watch the sunrise over the world-renowned landscape of geological formations in the area.
	Three Brazilian tourists were killed last year when two balloons collided in flight over the Cappadocia region.

Tourist dies in hot air balloon accident in Turkey

Community leaders and Ebola surveillance teams are going house-to-house in neighborhoods in and around Sierra Leone's capital to search for the sick.
	President Ernest Bai Koroma launched "Operation Western Area Surge" today in a national broadcast. While infection rates appear to be stabilizing or declining in neighboring Guinea and Liberia, Sierra Leone is still seeing a surge of cases, especially the Western Area, which includes Freetown and its surroundings.
	Koroma promised that treatment beds, labs and ambulances stand ready to handle any new cases. The operation will last 14 days, when Koroma promised teams would check every home for the sick.
	He also encouraged traditional and religious leaders, politicians and women's and youth groups to speak to people in their communities about Ebola and encourage them to seek treatment.

Search for Ebola in Sierra Leone capital begins

Russia's embattled ruble appeared to be regaining some of its catastrophic losses in early trading today, boosted by the finance ministry's announcement that it is about to intervene to support the currency.
	Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that it is going to sell foreign currency from its treasury accounts "as much as necessary and as long as necessary."
	The ruble lost over 15 percent of its value this week despite yesterday's massive interest rate hike by the Russian central bank and was at some point more than 20 per cent down yesterday.
	The world's worst-performing currency along with the Ukrainian hryvnia, the ruble has lost more than 50 per cent of its value this year. After posting some fresh losses at the opening, the ruble reversed its fall an hour into the trading and was up 5 per cent at 64 rubles at 11.15 a.M. Moscow time (0815 GMT).
	The moderate rise in the ruble was further spurred by the finance ministry's ...

Russian ruble recovers losses

A clash between two rival "self-defense" groups in the western state of Michoacan left six people dead, including the son of one of the group's founders, officials and militia members said.
	Alfredo Castillo, the federal government's security commissioner for Michoacan, told Grupo Formula radio that the groups fought at a barricade at the entrance to the community of La Ruana yesterday. He said it appeared that four from one side and two from the other had been killed.
	"La Ruana is the only place where we have two leaders with influence," Castillo said.
	The vigilante groups emerged more than a year ago when farmers and ranchers organised and armed themselves to confront drug traffickers in the violent state. In May, some members of "self-defense" groups were demobilised and integrated into a government-sanctioned rural police force.
	Castillo said that a group led by a man nicknamed "El Americano" had been upset for several months by the way Hipolito Mora, the leader of the other ...

6 dead in clash between Mexican vigilante groups

African leaders are calling on Western countries to intervene in Libya to stem a flow of arms to militant groups in the Sahel region.
	Libya is mired in the worst fighting since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in 2011, leaving the country with two rival governments. In the chaos, arms have flowed from Libya into Africa's Sahel region, home to several militant groups.
	France is moving troops toward the Libyan border partially to track such arm shipments.
	But Chadian President Idriss Deby and others said yesterday more needs to be done and the region's security depends on it. He told a security summit in Dakar, Senegal: "The solution to the crisis that is shaking this country is not in African hands, but in the hands of the West, notably NATO.

African leaders: West should intervene in Libya

The three teenage girls from the US state of Colorado swapped Twitter messages about marriage and religion with recruiters for the Islamic State group, then set out for Syria with passports and thousands of dollars in stolen cash.
	Authorities intercepted them in Germany, then returned them to their families without criminal charges.
	That case and others like it show how the militant group is targeting its sophisticated propaganda beyond male fighters, seeking to entice not only wives but also professionals such as doctors, accountants and engineers as it pushes to build a new society in a territorial base that has spread across broad swaths of Iraq and Syria.
	The motives of this diverse pool of recruits perplex Western governments trying to stem the flow. One recruit, Shannon Conley, a Colorado woman who was caught and is being sentenced next month, sought to fight in Syria or use her nursing skills to help fighters there.
	The group "is issuing a bit of a siren song through social 

Islamic State recruits broadly, not just fighters

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said today she is "heartbroken" about the attack on a military school in Pakistan that has claimed more than 125 lives, including many students.
	Malala said that she and millions of others throughout the world mourn the lives of the children who died in the Taliban assault on a school in Peshawar.
	"Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this," said Malala, 17. "I condemn these atrocious and cowardly acts."
	Malala is herself the survivor of a Taliban attempt to silence her.
	In a bid to prevent her from lobbying for a girl's right to education, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head at close range in Pakistan two years ago.
	She survived with the help of expert medical care and now lives in Birmingham, England, where she is continuing to fight for equal education.
	Malala, who has expressed an interest in going into politics in Pakistan once her education is completed, said she stands "united" with the government ...

Malala: 'Heartbroken' about attack in Pakistan

Prosecutors want a judge presiding over a terrorism trial to let them show jurors letters recovered in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden to boost evidence against a man snatched off the streets of Libya last year.
	In papers in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors asked US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan to permit the "critically important evidence" against Abu Anas al-Libi.
	Al-Libi was nabbed in Tripoli in October 2013 and brought to the United States to face trial in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people. He has pleaded not guilty in the attacks, which killed a dozen Americans.
	The government wants to show jurors six letters dated between June 2010 and April 2011 and recovered from bin Laden's Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound, where he was killed May 2, 2011, by a special operations team.
	Al-Libi's lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
	Prosecutors said the letters, including two written by al-Libi, prove he actively participated 

US seeks to use bin Laden letters at terror trial

The world is better prepared to face past calamities like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami but it's not ready for the extreme weather of the future, the UN's top natural disaster official said today.
	Margareta Wahlstrom, the special representative of the UN secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, said early warning systems like those now in place in the Indian Ocean are helping improve preparations for major disasters.
	That warning system was established after a massive earthquake off the Indonesian coast on December 26, 2004, triggered a 100-foot-high tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 14 countries and caused USD 10 billion in damage.
	However, Wahlstrom says much more needs to be done to prepare for the extreme weather that has noticeably increased in recent years.
	"Disasters that go beyond what you can expect a country to cope with is not an issue for poor countries anymore, it's an issue for every country," Wahlstrom told The Associated Press, pointing to Pakistan, ...

UN envoy urges future focus to cut disaster risks

The British Embassy in Cairo reopened today and resumed full public services following more than a week of closure over security concerns, the embassy said in a statement posted on its website.
	It said security matters concerning the embassy's building have been resolved in cooperation with the Egyptian government.
	The government had stepped up security measures around the embassy after it was closed to the public on December 7. The embassy did not give details on any threats it may have received.
	A day after the British, the Canadian Embassy in Cairo also closed over unspecified security concerns. No one answered calls at the Canadian Embassy and its answering machine says it remains closed.
	Earlier, senior Egyptian security officials said recent arrests of suspected militants revealed plans to target embassies and foreign nationals in the country.
	The British statement also quoted Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond as saying he was pleased for the resumption of the embassy's ...

British Embassy in Cairo reopens to public

Pope Francis is opening the doors to an earthly paradise: the working farm at the papal summer residence here that produces the dairy, meat and vegetables for the pope and his staff.
	The Vatican is planning to open the farm at Castel Gandolfo to the public next year, after finding success with its guided tours of the surrounding gardens, fountains and Roma-era archaeological treasures on the sprawling estate 25 kilometers south of Rome.
	Francis has decided not to use the hilltop retreat overlooking Lake Albano, preferring to stay put in his suite at the Vatican hotel during vacations. The last time the palazzo was used was when Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI took up residence for a few months after his dramatic resignation in 2013.
	Soon, the public will be able to see the free-range hens housed in a majolica-decorated chicken coop, the ostriches, turkeys, rabbits and 80 cows that feed Francis and his staff at the Santa Marta hotel.
	"We wait for the order from Santa Marta," said ...

Holy cow! Vatican to open pope's farm to public

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man as violence erupted during an arrest operation in the West Bank today, the military said.
	It said Palestinians in the refugee camp of Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, threw explosive charges and opened fire at soldiers during the operation and that they responded with fire of their own, killing one man, and wounding another. Palestinian medical officials identified the dead man as 20-year-old Mahmoud Abdalla.
	Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been high in recent months, mostly over a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, though the West Bank has been somewhat calmer. Israeli security officials ascribe the relative lull to attempts by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to keep the lid on violence as he pushes for a UN resolution on Israeli occupation.
	Some Palestinian officials have suggested that Abbas will push for the vote on a draft resolution as early as this week that would set a November 2016 deadline for ending the ...

Israeli forces kill Palestinian in West Bank

South Korea's transport ministry said Korean Air Lines Co will face sanctions for pressuring employees to lie during a government probe into the nut rage fiasco that highlighted the tyrannical behavior of a top Korean business family.
	The ministry said today it will also evaluate if the airline's corporate culture poses safety risks after its chairman's daughter Cho Hyun-ah overruled the captain of a flight to force the plane back to the gate in the incident early this month.
	Cho, who was head of cabin service at Korean Air, ordered a senior flight attendant off a Dec 5 flight after she was served macadamia nuts in a bag, instead of on a plate, in what she thought was a breach of service protocol in first class.
	Transport ministry director Lee Gwang-hee said Korean Air could face 21 days of flight suspensions or a USD 1.3 million fine for violating aviation law. The punishment will be determined by a separate committee that could decide to increase or lessen it.
	Cho family members 

Korean Air to be sanctioned for nut rage cover-up

A man who says he was sexually abused by a scout leader in the mid-1970s won a USD 7 million jury verdict against the Boy Scouts of America.
	Lawyers for the man in Connecticut said the decision handed down Friday in Waterbury Superior Court was the largest verdict for compensatory damages against the Boy Scouts' national organization. The jury also found the organization liable for punitive damages, with the amount to be determined by a judge.
	The man, known only as John Doe in court documents, alleges he was a member of a New Fairfield Boy Scouts troop when its leader, Siegfried Hepp, sexually abused him three times.
	The plaintiff's lawyers presented evidence that has been introduced at similar trials across the US alleging that Boy Scouts officials kept confidential files dating back to the 1920s that contained information on alleged pedophiles.
	Plaintiffs' lawyers have alleged that Boy Scouts officials knew scouting programs were being targeted by pedophiles, but they took no ..

US jury awards USD 7M in scouts abuse case

Demonstrators have blocked streets around police headquarters and chained shut four doors of a California police headquarters to protest recent grand jury decisions not to indict white officers who killed unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York.
	Police made at least 13 arrests as the protesters chained themselves to the doors of the Oakland police headquarters during soggy weather yesterday and prevented people from getting inside.
	Oakland and neighbouring Berkeley have seen numerous protests, some violent, since grand juries recently declined to indict white officers in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York City. Both men were black and unarmed.
	Demonstrators in front of one entrance held a sign that read, "End the War on Black People."
	"It's not OK, black lives matter," Gopal Dayeneni, one of the protesters, told KTVU-TV.
	Television news footage showed about a dozen people blocking 

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